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This is a very unwise decision. I Follow people on Twitter who I've witnessed being stalked and harassed. Blocking helped to end that. Now the rule change le

This is a very unwise decision. I Follow people on Twitter who I've witnessed being stalked and harassed. Blocking helped to end that. Now the rule change lets the stalkers, trolls, and harassers have the upper hand. What Block was always missing was Mute. Now it's all been changed to Mute without Block. This is just screwy. And saying to Protect your account is like a punishment to the innocent. Unless Twitter has changed their TOS, it's a TOS violation to RT a Protected account.

MattGrommes 13y ago
I don't understand how this gives harassers the upper hand. If you can't see their messages any more doesn't that remove the harassment? I've seen multiple people say this today but I don't understand it. I've also never been outright harassed on Twitter so I'm sure there's something I'm missing.
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  For one thing, since Twitter capitulated to them in this regard, it means that they should continue their bad behaviours, because it will cause Twitter to change their policies.
  - rjknight 13y ago
    I think that's a rather 'meta' example. A better one would be that if someone can reply to your tweets or mention your username, they can make it appear that you're (rudely) refusing to engage them in legitimate conversation. Or they can retweet you, followed by a series of their own tweets ridiculing you. I'm sure there are more creative ideas than this. One might argue that any harm done here is outweighed by the fact that the target of the harassment won't be able to see any of it, and I find that argument reasonably persuasive. It seems that Twitter's decision has been taken in order to make blocking a 'silent' or 'invisible' action, such that the person being blocked cannot know that they're blocked. Their calculation seems to be that harm is reduced this way, because it introduces an asymmetry of information in favour of the person doing the blocking - they know who they have blocked, but the person they've blocked does not. To call that 'capitulation' is not an accurate reading of the situation, in my view.
- zem 13y ago
  they can now retweet your stuff and get their followers to mob you
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - eropple 13y ago
    They could still post a link before. Or, IIRC (may be wrong), RT from another account and RT that.
    - zem 13y ago
      yes, but the more tedious the ux made it to do so, the fewer people would do it
      - eropple 13y ago
        I'm skeptical of this claim. I don't think that someone bound and determined to be this kind of an asshole would really be stopped by that. (edit: I want to stress that I'm not saying it's wrong, just that it seems rather counter-intuitive.)
        zem 13y ago
        think of it as a set of effort versus determination curves. every time you shift the effort curve a bunch of less-determined jerks give up. on the other hand if you shift the curve the other way and jerkery becomes as easy as pressing a button, a lot more people will give in to the casual impulse to do son.
        eropple 13y ago
        Yeah, I get that. I'm just skeptical that it moves it much. Personally, I liked the change; I'd like to be able to block annoying people who nevertheless RT my stuff.
  - 13y ago
crystaln 13y ago
If someone is stalking or harassing, they can just set up another account - blocking has no affect but to antagonize. If someone is being stalked or harassed, they need to decide whether they should be posting publicly on twitter, because no amount of blocking will prevent a stalker from seeing what they post. The only thing the victim can do with regard to twitter is: - Stop posting publicly (post privately or don't post) - Stop themselves from seeing the harassing messages, which this new block functionality does. The change makes complete sense, as it doesn't deceive users into thinking blocking makes something private.
- rjknight 13y ago
  That's one answer, but it's not a very good one. Can we think of no better option than for people who are being harassed to 'decide whether they should be posting publicly'?
  - crystaln 13y ago
    If the goal is to post publicly, but not have the harasser see those messages, then no - that's not rationally possible.
    - rjknight 13y ago
      Ah, but to hell with rationality! You think it's rational for someone to reply to all of your tweets with mindless abuse, and to encourage other people to do the same? For better or worse (I think it's for worse, which is why I don't tweet all that much), Twitter encourages rapid-fire think-before-speaking responses to things. You see something you don't like, you hit reply and boom, you've just told that person to die in a fire. Or you've just retweeted it to your small but equally annoying group of friends. The purpose of the old blocking system, in a way, was to prevent trolls[1] from seeing things that might provoke them into action. The goal is not actually to prevent someone from seeing your messages, but to prevent someone who is logged in to an active twitter account with a >0 number of followers from seeing your tweet. That's a non-trivial difference. I started out (in my other comments) thinking that the difference really was trivial, but you actually have to think like a troll in order to understand why it isn't. Unless they really cared about harassing someone, the old-style block would probably be enough to stop most people from tweeting an insult, if only because it forces them to 'cool off' by logging out, finding the person they want to harass, and logging back in again in order to reply. I can't shake the feeling that neither policy is really right, and there must be a more elegant solution. But, it's 1am here and I should probably get some sleep before trying to find the solution that has evaded the entire internet for 20 years. [1] I don't use the term 'trolls' lightly. Lots of things get called 'trolling' which really aren't, but in this case I think it's valid.

MattGrommes 13y ago

I don't understand how this gives harassers the upper hand. If you can't see their messages any more doesn't that remove the harassment? I've seen multiple people say this today but I don't understand it. I've also never been outright harassed on Twitter so I'm sure there's something I'm missing.

steveklabnik 13y ago
For one thing, since Twitter capitulated to them in this regard, it means that they should continue their bad behaviours, because it will cause Twitter to change their policies.
- rjknight 13y ago
  I think that's a rather 'meta' example. A better one would be that if someone can reply to your tweets or mention your username, they can make it appear that you're (rudely) refusing to engage them in legitimate conversation. Or they can retweet you, followed by a series of their own tweets ridiculing you. I'm sure there are more creative ideas than this. One might argue that any harm done here is outweighed by the fact that the target of the harassment won't be able to see any of it, and I find that argument reasonably persuasive. It seems that Twitter's decision has been taken in order to make blocking a 'silent' or 'invisible' action, such that the person being blocked cannot know that they're blocked. Their calculation seems to be that harm is reduced this way, because it introduces an asymmetry of information in favour of the person doing the blocking - they know who they have blocked, but the person they've blocked does not. To call that 'capitulation' is not an accurate reading of the situation, in my view.
zem 13y ago
they can now retweet your stuff and get their followers to mob you
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- eropple 13y ago
  They could still post a link before. Or, IIRC (may be wrong), RT from another account and RT that.
  - zem 13y ago
    yes, but the more tedious the ux made it to do so, the fewer people would do it
    - eropple 13y ago
      I'm skeptical of this claim. I don't think that someone bound and determined to be this kind of an asshole would really be stopped by that. (edit: I want to stress that I'm not saying it's wrong, just that it seems rather counter-intuitive.)
      - zem 13y ago
        think of it as a set of effort versus determination curves. every time you shift the effort curve a bunch of less-determined jerks give up. on the other hand if you shift the curve the other way and jerkery becomes as easy as pressing a button, a lot more people will give in to the casual impulse to do son.
        eropple 13y ago
        Yeah, I get that. I'm just skeptical that it moves it much. Personally, I liked the change; I'd like to be able to block annoying people who nevertheless RT my stuff.
- 13y ago

crystaln 13y ago

If someone is stalking or harassing, they can just set up another account - blocking has no affect but to antagonize. If someone is being stalked or harassed, they need to decide whether they should be posting publicly on twitter, because no amount of blocking will prevent a stalker from seeing what they post. The only thing the victim can do with regard to twitter is: - Stop posting publicly (post privately or don't post) - Stop themselves from seeing the harassing messages, which this new block functionality does. The change makes complete sense, as it doesn't deceive users into thinking blocking makes something private.

rjknight 13y ago
That's one answer, but it's not a very good one. Can we think of no better option than for people who are being harassed to 'decide whether they should be posting publicly'?
- crystaln 13y ago
  If the goal is to post publicly, but not have the harasser see those messages, then no - that's not rationally possible.
  - rjknight 13y ago
    Ah, but to hell with rationality! You think it's rational for someone to reply to all of your tweets with mindless abuse, and to encourage other people to do the same? For better or worse (I think it's for worse, which is why I don't tweet all that much), Twitter encourages rapid-fire think-before-speaking responses to things. You see something you don't like, you hit reply and boom, you've just told that person to die in a fire. Or you've just retweeted it to your small but equally annoying group of friends. The purpose of the old blocking system, in a way, was to prevent trolls[1] from seeing things that might provoke them into action. The goal is not actually to prevent someone from seeing your messages, but to prevent someone who is logged in to an active twitter account with a >0 number of followers from seeing your tweet. That's a non-trivial difference. I started out (in my other comments) thinking that the difference really was trivial, but you actually have to think like a troll in order to understand why it isn't. Unless they really cared about harassing someone, the old-style block would probably be enough to stop most people from tweeting an insult, if only because it forces them to 'cool off' by logging out, finding the person they want to harass, and logging back in again in order to reply. I can't shake the feeling that neither policy is really right, and there must be a more elegant solution. But, it's 1am here and I should probably get some sleep before trying to find the solution that has evaded the entire internet for 20 years. [1] I don't use the term 'trolls' lightly. Lots of things get called 'trolling' which really aren't, but in this case I think it's valid.